IFF: Panamas Film Festival survives Wolf Cry

By Margot Thomas
THE AUTHORITIES cried wolf and thousands of Panamanian drivers stayed off the streets of Panama during the Summit of the Americas, on April 10-11 fearing traffic gridlock as highly publicized announcements of street closures were circulated.
 Many of them never happened or were short lived, and with businesses, schools and government offices closed, driving around the city was reminiscent of Carnaval time in Panama City when large parts of the population have fled to the Interior and firing a canon on some of the main streets would spill no blood..
Meanwhile the organizers of Panama’s prestigious International Film Festival (IFF) whose opening days coincided with the Summit, were quick to alert film buffs that the show would go on, and it did, bringing the attention of media around the world to a burgeoning festival that provides not only entertainment for local audiences, but gives a bigger stage for regional and Latin American film makers to showcase their wares and gain recognition in other spheres.
A good example is the Primera Mirada award for Central America/Caribbean pics-in-post production, providing an exciting challenge and opportunity, for regional film makers. The first edition was such a close run race that the $25,000 award was split between two films
It got widespread coverage by visiting journalists including an industry bible, Variety Magazine which reported:
Julio Hernández Cordón’s “Te Prometo Anarquía,” won the lion’s share of IFF Panama’s pioneering Primera Mirada award .
“Te Prometo Anarquía,” a Guatemalan-Mexican co-production was awarded a cash prize of $20.000 by the jury on behalf of the festival, while $5.000 was awarded to Costa Rica’s “The Sound of Things” (“El sonido de las casa”), directed by Ariel Escalante.
The jury that had watched the rough cuts of the five finalists over two days, and met and spoken with the filmmakers, was made up of Spanish producer Elena Manrique; Pervuian actor Salvador del Solar, who also directed San Sebastian Films in Progress winner “Magallanes;” and Lourdes Cortes, director of Costa Rica film fund Cinergia, a key source of financing for many Central American movies.
Other films under consideration in Primera Mirada this year included “Angélica,” from Puerto Rican first-timer Marisol Gómez-Mouakad; “1991,” Guatemalan Sergio Ramírez’s follow-up to 2012’s multi-laureled “Distance,” and “Kenke,” from Panama’s own Enrique Pérez Him.
Love story “Te Prometo Anarquía” centers on Miguel, from a middle-class family, and Johnny, from a humble barrio, who are skateboarders, best friends and lovers. To finance their lifestyle, they sell their own blood, and those of their gang of skateboarders and acquaintances, to clandestine clinics, until a big delivery job for a mob goes wrong.
“’Te Prometo Anarquía’ is a lovely and heartfelt exploration of love and friendship. Beautifully shot, the film demonstrates Hernandez’s versatility and progression as a filmmaker. The scenes of the skateboarders in Mexico City, for instance, are kinetic and feel very realistic,” says producer Sandra Gomez at Interior XIII, a lynchpin production-distribution house on Mexico’s left-of-field arthouse scene told Variety prior to the screenings in Panama.
“The jury asked me if they could split the prize,” says the curator of Primera Mirada, Diana Sanchez, IFF Panama’s artistic director. “I said they could, and it was the jury that decided on the $20.000-$5.000 split.”
Sanchez is more than satisfied in how Primera Mirada has played out in its first year and confirmed to Variety that it will be repeated at the 5th festival next year. The hunt for next year’s finalists will begin just as soon as this festival winds down.
Already this year the filmmakers involved in Primera Mirada had the valuable opportunity to meet and interact with some of the more experienced international filmmakers who were screening their films at this year’s festival, as well as to meet industry executives and the media.
Unspooling one month before Cannes, Primera Mirada offered sales agents and buyers a privileged dedicated window onto titles, talents and trends in Central America and the Caribbean, as they rapidly come on world cinema’s radar, aided in no small way by the IFF Panama. All five films that screened in Primera Mirada are now firmly showing up on industry and festival radars as films to check on.